I just updated my wife's 2008 MBP to High Sierra using the DOSdude1 patcher. It has an existing install of MS Office 2008 (I own it and still have the CDs) which ran fine previously and I know runs fine on High Sierra on my 2015 MBP Retina. However, after the update, the Office icons are greyed out with a slash and clicking them gets me a can't open the application MS Word because PowerPC applications are no longer supported".

Based on the above, I think that this computer was running an MS Word PowerPC version in Rosetta that was probably migrated from her previous PowerPC computer. It seems to me that I should be able to update this to the Intel version but I'm a little worried about how to retain the license key since the software may think I'm exceeding the number of license keys allowed. Any experts here know how I should go about this.

Yes, I realize that the 2008 MBP is way obsolete, but she doesn't want a new computer and this one runs great with a 1tb SSD, maxed RAM and relatively new battery.

No, I don't want to pay for a newer version of MS Office. This version does everything I need and I own it.

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"In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion." (1987) -- Carl Sagan



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/02/2022 02:26PM by davester.

There was no Office 2013 for the Mac, only 2011 and 2016. 2013 was for the PC.

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PeterW
There was no Office 2013 for the Mac, only 2011 and 2016. 2013 was for the PC.

I agree, and Office 2011 required an Intel processor, so it seems odd that it's being flagged as a PowerPC app.

Office 2008 was the last version that supported PowerPC.

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PeterW
There was no Office 2013 for the Mac, only 2011 and 2016. 2013 was for the PC.

Oops, my bad! I meant to say Office 2008. Corrected OP now.

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"In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion." (1987) -- Carl Sagan

Are you sure Office 2008 is the one running on your 2015 MBP?

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PeterW
Are you sure Office 2008 is the one running on your 2015 MBP?

Yup. This is the first version that was advertised as including both PowerPC and Intel code. I assume that what happens during the install process is that the software checks for which system it is being installed on and then only installs the processor-specific code.

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"In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion." (1987) -- Carl Sagan

Do you have the installers for all of the Service Packs and updates to it? Maybe when it's fully updated it will show as x86 apps.

The last update was issued in 2013 while Mountain Lion (10.8) was the most recent Mac OS, so anything beyond that isn't officially supported, but it's reported to work all the way to Mojave (10.14). Although when people report that an app works, they most likely upgraded from a previous OS and didn't actually re-install the app, so the installation process might be a bit more "iffy" on later OS versions.

My guess is that she never updated the suite beyond the initial install.

You need to update it to v12.3.6. Then it will run under High Sierra. Unfortunately, Microsoft no longer distributes this update. If you have this version of Office on another Mac, you should be able to copy the apps over and they will most likely pick up the license.

Otherwise, you're in a bind since the license servers for the 2008 and 2011 suites are offline and the current version of Office requires Catalina. Any chance that she can get along with iWork and LibreOffice?

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Sarcany
Otherwise, you're in a bind since the license servers for the 2008 and 2011 suites are offline and the current version of Office requires Catalina.

I've had success (at least for 2011) with using phone activation. Just did so last week. It's a PITA entering all the numbers, but it does work (again, at least for 2011).

You can reinstall office 2008, you just can't from High Sierra (IIRC).

I booted my mac off an external drive running something older (but new enough for APFS?) and ran the installer. I did this in Jan 2020, so I don't know if the server thing has changed since then.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/02/2022 05:05PM by ADent.

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Sarcany
My guess is that she never updated the suite beyond the initial install.

You need to update it to v12.3.6. Then it will run under High Sierra. Unfortunately, Microsoft no longer distributes this update. If you have this version of Office on another Mac, you should be able to copy the apps over and they will most likely pick up the license.

I do in fact have 12.3.6 on my MBPR. Should it be as easy as copying the application files over?

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"In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion." (1987) -- Carl Sagan

Well that was weird. I updated a different piece of software and rebooted a second time and suddenly MS Office is working OK. I checked and it's actually running v12.3.4. It would be nice to have 12.3.6 but I think I'll leave well enough alone.

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"In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion." (1987) -- Carl Sagan